Inquest called into 2019 Westboro bus crash

A coronor’s inquest will investigate the deaths of three OC Transpo commuters at Westboro Station in January 2019. A date and venue for the inquest have not been announced.

Published Jul 15, 2024 • Last updated 4 hours ago • 3 minute read

A file photo shows first responders working at the scene after the OC Transpo bus crash at Westboro Station on Jan. 11, 2019. Photo by Wayne Cuddington /POSTMEDIA

A coronor’s inquest will investigate the circumstances that led to the deaths of three OC Transpo commuters at Westboro Station in January 2019.

Dr. Louise McNaughton-Filion, the regional supervising coroner in Ontario’s East Region, announced the inquest Monday.

It will investigate the deaths of Judy Booth, 57, Bruce Thomlinson, 56, and Anja Van Beek, 65, all second-floor passengers on OC Transpo Bus 8155 when it slammed into Westboro Station on the bright, cold afternoon of Jan. 11, 2019.

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A date and venue for the inquest have not been announced.

McNaughton-Filion said she expects the inquest jury will make recommendations aimed at preventing similar tragedies.

Bus 8155 slammed into the leading edge of Westboro Station’s steel awning, which sliced into the second floor of the double decker, killing three passengers and pinning others between collapsed seats.

The driver of the bus, Aissatou Diallo, 44, was acquitted in September 2021 of any criminal responsibility for the crash. Ontario Court Justice Matthew Webber said Diallo’s actions as a driver were not a “marked departure” from the standard of a care a reasonably prudent driver would have exercised in the same situation.

He found the crash was not due to Diallo’s inattention or unresponsiveness, but to a tragic combination of circumstances: a blinding sunset, some confusing markings on the road leading to the station and snow on the shoulder of the road.

Court heard Diallo, a rookie OC Transpo bus driver, drifted onto the shoulder of the Transitway, then hit a snowbank, a rock wall and another snowbank before slamming into Westboro Station.

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The bus was travelling about 10 km/h above the Transitway’s posted speed limit when it left the dry road and moved onto the snow-covered shoulder.

Court heard Diallo did not apply the brakes in the five seconds between drifting onto the shoulder and hitting the station.

In acquitting Diallo, the judge accepted an expert’s argument that Diallo did not have time to react to one collision before the next occurred. She was found not guilty of all charges: three counts of dangerous driving and 35 counts of dangerous driving causing bodily harm.

The site of the crash, Westboro Station, was demolished in October 2022 to make way for expansion of the city’s light rail transit system.

Among other things, the coronor’s inquest could examine the design of the bus station, the training regime for OC Transpo drivers and the relative safety of double-decker buses.

A double-decker bus was also involved in the deadliest crash in OC Transpo’s history: Six people were killed on Sept. 18, 2013, when a bus collided with a Via Rail train on Woodroffe Avenue.

During Diallo’s criminal trial, an accident reconstruction expert told court the 2019 Westboro bus crash was “entirely foreseeable” given the design of the Transitway and the danger posed to double-decker buses by its stations.

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“In our opinion, a safety audit ought to have identified the potential risks posed by the Transitway shelters to double-decker buses,” engineer Richard Lamoureux concluded in his April 2021 report on the crash, prepared at the request of Diallo’s defence team.

His report recommended that double-decker buses be removed from the Transitway until the stations can be equipped with barrier protection to prevent a similar incident.

Lamoureux noted that the Transitway was designed and built before OC Transpo started buying double-decker buses in 2012.

Andrew Duffy is a National Newspaper Award-winning reporter and long-form feature writer based in Ottawa. To support his work, including exclusive content for subscribers only, sign up here: ottawacitizen.com/subscribe

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